our area got a whole lot of rain at the beginning of april. which finally allowed our horrible looking yard to turn a rich shade of green. and to grow at an alarming rate. so the rain, plus a few other little distractions, made it hard for ross to get out and mow it for several weeks.

so then it looked like this:

but last weekend he finally got out to mow (and even got to “cheat” by borrowing our neighbor’s riding lawn mower – ours is a push mower, aka “would’ve taken 6 hours to mow”)

left: unmowed grass, right: mowed grass

and voila, the after. much better.

and now for a casual stroll around our yard. i love when our yard finally starts to come back to life.

grape hyacinths. we have them everywhere.

our one lone yellow tulip in the back mulch bed…

and the one lone daffodil right beside it. must plant more bulbs back there this fall so these two don’t seem so random. which right now, they are.

seedum, transplanted from the mother-in-law’s house a few years ago and growing really well.

more seedum. this stuff is so pretty for not having any flowers.

gratuitous puppy pic!

and in the front yard:

on either side of our front porch we have tulips, more grape hyacinths, and creeping phlox – since they’re all in bloom at the same time it really jazzes up the front of the house without me having to do any work. love me some perennials.

and tah-dahhhh! garden 2k11 has begun!

ross had a work thing up in roanoke earlier this week and was kind enough to buy me some pepper seedlings at the roanoke farmer’s market. these seedlings (red, yellow, and orange bell peppers) look soo much better than what i can usually get my pepper seedlings to look like and i’m A-OK with not growing them from seed this year.

all we did was transplant them from their plastic 4-pack into larger pots, where they’ll await their final transplant into the garden sometime in mid may. can’t wait.

and finally, i started my tomato seeds – the only seeds i’ll be growing under lights this year. everything else will get direct-seeded into the garden in may along with the peppers.

we’re quickly coming up on our last frost date, which means that the garden really starts to come alive. about a week and a half more.

of course, not everyone’s garden begins after the last frost. my goal is to eventually plant more cool weather plants in the future – like greens, lettuces, broccoli, asparagus, carrots, etc. this year i have spinach, lettuce, garlic, onions, and potatoes. nothing harvestable yet, but they seem to be filling in nicely.

successes:

– even though small, i’m already harvesting the little flat of lettuce i planted early. lettuces planted in the garden are filling in by the day

– last year’s strawberries are back and blooming. i can even see tiny little strawberry buds already

– the garden is weeded and filled in with new mulch

– i didn’t add any new boxes this year, so no extra construction was needed. this saves a lot of time

– the crocuses and tulips planted along the fenceline bloomed this year

– set up the seed shelves with grow lights and heat boxes on thermostats

– introducing about six types of flowers to the garden/yard this year. can’t wait for some pops of color in a usually very green space.

failures:

– my peppers and tomatoes aren’t doing so hot. after setting up my new seed shelves i was pretty confident that this year’s seedlings would be the best yet. and they’re not. i’m still not exactly sure why, but i’ve started transplanting some of the better looking seedlings into larger pots filled with the compost we had leftover from filling the garden boxes – so maybe they’ll perk up. tomatoes are my favorite veggie in the garden, so it’s very frustrating.

– accidentally planted my garlic into a bed thick with cover crop seeds – which means that now i’m having to go in by hand and weed out all the rye so that the garlic can breathe. this is taking a long time.

– reallly need a coldframe (would LOVE a hoophouse, to be honest) to a) start some plants early and b) boost the heat on some peppers to see if I can force them to get bigger before transplanting them out in the garden. i don’t think they’re really getting enough sun/heat during the day and therefore aren’t producing as much fruit as fast as they could be.

– not really a failure, more of a challenge for this year: my trellises. is the system i have the best? i’m going to be changing my trellising system for squash/zucchini/cucumbers/watermelon/pumpkins so it’ll be another experimental year for these plants.

as you can tell from the four bamboo posts already in, we drilled a small but deep hole at an 65ish degree angle. this helps the poles to lean in

then its time to use your muscles and jam the pole firmly into place. many blisters and sore muscles will ensue.

in general, we aimed to sink the poles about 12 inches into the ground

if you make a really intense face, the pole will go in easier

even i had to bring out the guns and help

finally! all eight poles are in. we designed this system using 1 pole every 2 feet – the boxes are 8 feet long, so that comes out to 4 poles on each side. is this the best design? not sure – this will be a year of trial and error

a few shots of the (nearly) finished product from a couple different angles. (later we secured all the post tops together by mounting a horizontal pole across the top and lashing them together)

the first two boxes hold the tomatoes, basil, and squash/zucchini/cukes/pumpkins/watermelon (both boxes eventually had trellises installed over them). the last box, the potatoes and onions

the lettuce has really started to fill in

this box has really started to take off – thankfully it won’t need trellises like the other two.

a closer look…

strawberries

pepper buds

a pot of parsley, oregano, and basil i bought last weekend at the farmer’s market

the rest of the tomato seedling stragglers. these guys will hopefully catch up in the growth department

i hate blog posts with no pictures, so i promise i’ll add some when i finally get them on my computer. i mean, honestly, it’s june already and i still haven’t posted any pictures that actually show the trees with leaves! this will all be remedied. 6/4 UPDATE: pics below!!

in the meantime, this is what’s going on in a nutshell:

– i bought an entire flat of strawflowers (here’s what they’ll eventually look like) from the farmer’s market and planted them in a small bed next to our garage. i hope to fill it in more with some zinnias. both are annuals, but are prone to reseeding themselves. let’s hope.

– all of the boxes have been constructed, filled with soil, and marked into square foot grids.

– ross and i have done a lot of weeding – in the front, in the back mulch bed, and in the garden. we’re not all there yet, but much better.

– our peonies are blooming! i have two different types: one light pink that had it’s biggest blooms yet, and one dark pink that bloomed for the first time this year.

– we’ve been wracking our brains to figure out a system to make all of my climbing veggies happy and not sprawling all over the ground – aka some sort of trellis system. we’ll be putting that little experiment to the test this weekend. more to follow.

– everything but the basil survived a random frost we had two weeks ago. i’ve reseeded some of it, but this year i may just have to give in and buy basil seedlings.

– now planted: 4 red peppers from the farmer’s market (carmen), 2 of each of the 3 peppers i grew from seed (Orange Bell, Red Belgian, Golden Treasure), two types of bush beans (one green variety and one yellow), spinach (bloomsdale longstanding), dill, oregano, cilantro (not sure if that will make it), a couple types of lettuce that may or may not make it, 2-3 of each variety of tomato i grew from seed (Roman Candle, Green Zebra, Moneymaker, Carbon, German Red Strawberry, Wes, Yellow Pear, and Sungold), squash (horn of plenty and white bush scallop), zucchini (costada romanesco), pie pumpkins (winter luxury pie), cucumbers (diva), and watermelon (white sugar lump). i know it sounds like a lot, but there really isn’t that much of any one plant. just small amounts of a lot of varieties. so we’ll see how they do.

– nabbed some free oregano off of freecycle, so should have a nice crop of that this year. also nabbed two types of sedum from the mother-in-law and planted them in front of the garage. our clematis (planted last year) is blooming in front of the garage as well.

– i’m sure there’s more, but those are the highlights. the most important task right now is a trellising system to keep everything growing up and not everywhere like some sort of plant vomit.

last saturday i made my first trip of the season to our local farmer’s market. i was admittedly a bit distracted, since I was only there to scavenge out fresh ingredients that i could use as pizza toppings for ross’s surprise 30th birthday party that evening. but i couldn’t help but noticing that one farmer had a massive amount of tomato and pepper seedlings for sale.

i know you must be thinking “what the heck are you oogling seedlings for when you’ve just spent massive amounts of time coddling your very own tomato and pepper seedlings into life?” and that’s a very good question. but i can only answer truthfully, which is, his seedlings were so much prettier than mine. and i was jealous.

so i bought four red “Carmen” bell pepper seedlings (which were approximately 10 times bigger and healthier than the ones growing in my garage right now) and felt a little bit better. but that got me thinking: how could I get nice seedlings earlier in the season – barring setting up a $5,000 fully heated greenhouse?

i read an article today with some info on a concept i’ve wanted to try for a while: build a cold frame.

the general concept of a cold frame is that it basically functions just like a greenhouse, except you can’t walk inside it, it’s subustantially smaller, you don’t have to run electricity to it, and it’s exponentially cheaper. what’s not to love, right?

So just like in a greenhouse, the combination of the sunlight coming through the glass and the way the plants are closed off from the outside elements, creates a much warmer atmosphere than the regular air temperature. therefore plants that wouldn’t normally be able to germinate in the cold temperatures of winter can do so. it actually can get so warm inside a cold frame that opening it a crack to regulate the heat, is a must, or the plants will get scorched. even in mid-march.

the article I read suggests a cold frame that looks more like the first picture below, which definitely has its benefits, but the most standard looking cold frames (another article here) have the general shape of the second picture below.

obviously with it already being may, its nearly too late for me to use a cold frame this year, but i’ve been thinking about making one to have for this fall in order to extend my harvest into november and even december. by that time, usually only things like greens, lettuce, broccoli, and radishes can be grown, but who wouldn’t like a fresh picked salad at thanksgiving, when all the grocery store lettuce is looking pretty beat up?

finally got out to snap a few pictures this morning of all the slow but steady progress around the yard and garden. i apologize for the picture quality – didn’t get a chance to touch these up at all. oh well, you’ll get the idea.

the front window boxes. hopefully the hot pink ladies on each end will start filling in and cascade down the sides of the box.

left side view. planted two pots with white petunias and lavender and yellow pansies. the tulips are almost in bloom!

the enormous pile of mulch that will get spread on all the flower beds this weekend. thankfully we’re supposed to have really nice weather.

Now we’re stepping into the seed room/garage were all the plants are kept.

these are all different varieties of tomatoes. (Green Zebra and Carbon mostly)

a little tub of two different types of lettuce

here’s the basil that’s started to really get big. i may have to split this pot into two so they’ll have enough room.

bell peppers. like i said, they’re doing so-so, because not all of them have sprouted. it’s possible that it may not be warm enough, even with the space heater. (which we’ve turned off by the way because its become the bane of our power bill’s existence) at least the ones that are up are doing well

the whole shebang. the really leafy pots behind the seed trays are different herb seedlings we purchased at Southern States a few weeks ago (onion chives, rosemary, and dill) and two tomato plants. I’m just waiting until it’s warm enough to plant them outside.

Buttercrunch lettuce seedlings that desperately need to be transplanted, but i don’t have soil in the boxes yet! just not enough time in the day.

the final layout of the garden (we just added the 4’x8′ box in the back right). we’ve also planted both onions and potatoes in the 4’x4′ box on the back left. grow! grow!

ye faithful compost pile. this back corner will be its permanent home so we’ll always have easy access. this past weekend the thermometer in it read 130 degrees. so it’s definitely working

so that’s the tour for now. after this weekend there should be a lot more to see.

…this blog (whenever i get around to updating it) is probably going to be overtaken by garden posts for the next couple of months. not that i won’t try to put some other things up here – we’ve been doing some projects around the house I need to post about – and there have also been a few new recipes flying around too – but to be honest, my brain is really going to be in the garden for quite awhile.

i posted the pictures of my tiny onion seedlings trying to make a go of it. but since then i’ve planted 3 kinds of bell peppers, 8 kinds of tomatoes, a whole bunch of herbs, an eggplant (was a free gift with my order, so why not try it out), leeks, and several types of lettuce.

then this past saturday, ross and i went down to our local southern states and came away with 2 rosemary seedlings, dill, chives, another type of lettuce, two types of onion sets, two orange tomato seedlings, and two flats of colorful pansies to plant out front. over the next couple of weeks, i’ll finish out all the planting: squash, zucchini, beans, watermelon, and a pumpkin.

and finally, ross and i made time to turn all those pieces of lumber into our raised beds and stapled weed blocker to the bottom to keep out unwanted plant life. we’ll lay them out in the garden in the next week or so – after we give the ground a nice tilling and remove as many of the weeds that are already growing. the plan is to fill in the extra space with wood chips from the local landfill to create walking paths.

so with perhaps the exception of my father, i may not have any visitors until growing season is over. if so, i hope you’ll at least rejoin me in the fall. 🙂 or for the occasional time i’ll talk about something that doesn’t have to do with dirt.